


A Crinkle of the Eye

by bryncurrey



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M, Self-loathing Oikawa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-04
Updated: 2015-11-04
Packaged: 2018-04-29 21:12:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5142611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bryncurrey/pseuds/bryncurrey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their love is a quiet one. It’s not a whirlwind romance like those seen in a blockbuster movie, or an overzealous romance novel. There are no loud, feverish displays of “I love you!” They are simply content with one another</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Crinkle of the Eye

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first IwaOi story, and I absolutely love this pairing! Please let me know in the comments if you enjoyed!

Their love is a quiet one. It’s not a whirlwind romance like those seen in a blockbuster movie, or an overzealous romance novel. There are no loud, feverish displays of “I love you!” They are simply content with one another. Iwaizumi finds it extremely ironic, due to the fact that Oikawa’s the loudest, most attention-seeking being that he’s ever had the chance to know. Iwaizumi was almost certain Oikawa would have been the type to flaunt his relationship to others, but he had quickly learned, that wasn’t the case. No, it was the exact opposite. 

Though, he should’ve known. Oikawa had never been loud or fake around Iwaizumi, even as children. When young Hajime had first seen young Tooru stood in front of the class, a grin resembling that of a sideways crescent moon plastered onto his face while he informed his classmates what he had done on his trip, Iwaizumi was thoroughly confused. He wasn’t used to the fake, plastered-on smile. No, he had spent his childhood knowing only the small quirks of a lip as Oikawa’s smile, and the crinkle in his eyes when he laughed. Oikawa showed none of that to others. With his other classmates, his laugh was boisterous and robust. It echoed around the classroom like thunder. But his eyes showed nothing. No crinkle, and no sparkle. That was when Iwaizumi knew that it wasn’t real. They would walk home together, and Oikawa would grow silent, but it had no negative connotations attached to it. It was a sign that he was relaxed. That he was comfortable. Oikawa would later tell him that it was because Iwaizumi was his home, but he had never known before. He had just let Oikawa be quiet, because he had wanted to be. 

-*- 

In the ungraceful and irritable years that were those of the pre-teens, Iwaizumi started to things about Oikawa that he hadn’t noticed before. The graceful slant of his cheekbones, his well-defined jawline, and his perfectly shaped nose were just a few of the things that haunted Iwaizumi’s thoughts. It was then when he realized that he was completely and utterly, for lack of a better word, screwed. He had heard the things the other boys had said about boys who liked boys; he had heard the jeers and taunts that they threw at anybody who seemed slightly out of the ordinary. He didn’t want to be seen like that. So, when the other boys would throw the jeers, Iwaizumi would follow along half-heartedly, but he wouldn’t be able to do it without a strong pulling feeling in his gut. You don’t like boys, you don’t like boys, you don’t like boys, he would repeat to himself night after night as the thoughts that flowed through his mind like viscous magma took a hold of him. In some ways, it was true. He didn’t like boys. He just liked Oikawa. Stupid, annoying, tragically self-loathing Oikawa. The boy had learned how to staple the Cheshire-cat smile to his face, and practically hardly let it off anymore. His persona seemed to mimic that of a Greek gods’, but Iwaizumi knew that was hardly the case. When Oikawa showed up to school, bags under his eyes, with yawns falling from his mouth every second syllable, Iwaizumi was the one to take him aside and tell him he needed to get some sleep. Of course, Oikawa would always blow it off. 

“Iwa-chan, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he would say. “I am perfectly fine. A-Okay!” 

“I know for certain that you’re not okay. Do you think I would be bringing it up if I thought you were fine, Shittykawa?” 

It was always the same afterwards. Oikawa would mumble something about not needing to be mothered, and Iwaizumi would snap out something much harsher than he intended, and Oikawa would deflate like a released balloon. 

-*-

In their third year of High School, Oikawa broke down. Iwaizumi was readily armed in the task of covering up every emotion he ever felt. He was a steel-box, only opened with a lock and a key. Oikawa, on the other hand, was a volcano. It was nothing, nothing, nothing and then it was everything. Iwaizumi awoke one cool, crisp February night to the sound of his phone ringing. When he saw it was Oikawa’s number, he felt his heart drop. Something had to be wrong. Oikawa was never one to call. 

He picked up and answered his phone in one swift, lighting-fast motion, and answered “What’s wrong?” On the other side of the receiver, he heard heaved breaths, quick and panicked, and he repeated his question with more force. “Tooru, what’s going on? Where are you?”

Oikawa’s voice on the other side of the receiver was thoroughly distressed. His breathing was coming in shorter, erratic spurts. “It’s…I fell down at the gym at school, Iwa-chan,” he sounded completely terrified. “Something went wrong. I don’t know what happened, but I can’t get up. I can’t get up, and I don’t know what to do,” he worried, his voice growing in pitch. 

“Don’t move. I’m coming to get you.”

He got up and out of his bed faster than anything he’d ever done before, and he couldn’t explain the powerful feeling pushing him out the door.

-*-

Oikawa had always strived for perfection, to the point where it was unhealthy. It was an obsession. Iwaizumi had seen it, and had warned him multiple times. 

“If you keep going to the gym afterschool every day, you’re going to fall behind,” Iwaizumi had told him on many an occasion. “You shouldn’t overwork yourself, you know? It’ll just stress you out.” 

Oikawa had always laughed, and replied with something akin to, “Oh, I’m fine. I just need some way to keep busy. A little bit of practice never hurt anybody, right?” 

Oh, how he was wrong. 

When Iwaizumi arrived at the gymnasium that night, Oikawa was on the floor beside a broken net, in the most dishevelled appearance Iwaizumi had ever seen on him. His hair was a stormy mess, and sweat dripped from his forehead to his chin. His eyes were startled and panicked, and he looked from his knee, to Iwaizumi, and back. 

Iwaizumi kneeled in front of him, and that was when Oikawa pulled him against him and cried into the crook of his neck. Iwaizumi froze, not used to such touches, but soon hugged the leaner boy tightly against his chest. 

Oikawa let out wracking sobs, and dug his fingers so hard into Iwaizumi’s back that it left little crescent-shaped bruises, but Iwaizumi let him. However composed and perfect Oikawa seemed throughout the day, Iwaizumi knew that he was just a boy trying his hardest. He was a beautifully, and tragically, broken boy. 

Iwaizumi drove him to the hospital that night, because the distant figures of authority that Oikawa had for parents would only scream harsh words, and Iwaizumi couldn’t bear Oikawa carrying that along with everything else he had to deal with. Oikawa clung to his arm, eyes open and wide the entire time. 

They sat in the doctor’s office, and as the doctor read out the results of the X-Ray, Iwaizumi watched as Oikawa’s face fell and his body sagged. A fracture, and a serious one at that. That mean no volleyball for 6-8 weeks, and for Oikawa, that meant failure. 

That night, in Iwaizumi’s bedroom, Oikawa sat catatonic on Iwaizumi’s bed, staring straight at the wall in front of him. His knee, wrapped with a brace and bandages, matched the crutches that leaned against Iwaizumi’s door. 

“Hajime?” he asked suddenly, causing Iwaizumi to turn his head at the use of his first name. Oikawa still stared directly at the wall in front of him.

“Yeah?” Iwaizumi replied, shifting his position on the bed, so he was cross-legged and facing Oikawa. 

Oikawa stayed silent for a few moments, before his brow furrowed, a look of self-revulsion settling in his eyes. He turned his eyes to meet Iwaizumi’s. “I’m never going to be able to be good enough,” he whispered. “I try, and I see what I do wrong, and I try to fix it, but I can never get it right. If I can’t beat anybody, then what’s the point? I’m not good enough. I’ll never be good enough.” 

Iwaizumi felt something in him flick like a light-switch, and he was fuming with an anger that he had never experienced before. He grabbed Oikawa by the face, and said through gritted teeth, “You stupid, fucking idiot!”

Oikawa’s eyes widened in confusion. “What…?”

Iwaizumi cut him off before he could continue. “How can you not realize that you’re enough? That you’re more than enough, really? Kageyama, Ushijima, whoever-they-are, you know, they can just go and screw off. You’ve got a passion, and you’ve got a fire unlike any of those guys, and that’s what sets you apart. You’re going to go places, Tooru. Even if you don’t know it, everyone else knows it. I know it.” 

Oikawa’s head tilted. “Iwa-chan?”

Iwaizumi pulled Oikawa’s face to his, and kissed him. His brain started to go haywire, telling him you shouldn’t do this, you shouldn’t do this, you shouldn’t do this, but he stopped listening. He was finished with all of his hiding, and he was finished with Oikawa thinking he was anything less than the interesting, wonderful being he was, so he did the one thing he had never done. 

He gave in.

At first, Oikawa’s lips were stiff, and his body froze and jolted in a state of shock, but that didn’t last long. His body melted into Iwaizumi’s touch, and he knit his hands into the others hair, and they are soon both gone. 

Iwaizumi’s hand mapped Oikawa’s face as if he was some sort of story, just waiting to be memorized and revised. Oikawa hands moved down and gripped the back of his shirt, pulling him closer, soft sounds escaping his mouth. 

It was in that moment when Iwaizumi fully realized that he was in love with Oikawa. He had been in love with him since they played together in the forest as children, and he loved him when he wanted nothing to do with him, and he loved him in that very moment. He just didn’t know it, before. Oikawa wasn’t just a pretty face that had caught his eye, no, Oikawa was a solid rock in his life. Never wavering, and never moving very far. 

When they finally let go of each other, their breathing coming heavy, Oikawa smiled. His eyes crinkled and sparkled like the sun. It was real. 

-*-

Their love is a quiet one. It’s not a whirlwind romance like those seen in a blockbuster movie, or an overzealous romance novel. It’s real.


End file.
